Chapter 5

5

P ain exploded in Bastian's skull as one of the men backhanded him. It would only take a few more strikes like these, and he'd go down. He had been worried a confrontation like this would happen, but he'd gone on this fool's errand simply to spend more time with Jane.

One of the men lunged for him as two more circled, waiting like wolves. Bastian slid sideways to avoid the man that dove for them, his feet skidding along the concrete. The move cost him greatly as he stumbled and fell. Instinct had him rolling back up onto the balls of his feet in a squat position, but he was vulnerable. A booted foot dug into his ribs in a savage kick, and his lungs expelled every breath of air in him. Fractures of pain shot through his chest. It took every ounce of willpower to gather his strength and tackle the man who had kicked him by grabbing the man's legs and dragging him to the ground.

Jane's frightened cry sent his senses scattering as fear for what was happening to her took over. Suddenly she was flying over his crouched body, tripping over him really, as she tried to escape the grasp of another of the men. She recovered from her fall and scrambled backward. The man pursuing her wasn't so lucky. When he collided with Bastian, Bastian pivoted to the side and grabbed the man's grubby plaid shirt, using the man's momentum to propel him forward and down. He flew face first into the pavement, and then he didn't move. In the dim lights from the pub, Bastian could just make out the dark smear of blood near his head. The fallen man moaned but didn't get up.

"Jane?" Bastian called out as he struggled to get up, scraping his palms over the cold concrete.

The man Bastian had tackled earlier still had fight left in him and managed one last punch to Bastian's eye before Bastian laid him flat with knockout blow to his temple. A feminine groan ahead of him was his only hint as to where she'd landed. He found her next to her suitcase, bending over it as she studied its ruined state. He could barely make out the scene, but he saw that her groan was one of frustration and anger. The canvas suitcase was lying in a pool of water where faint streetlights glinted off the shallow pool. No doubt her clothes and any other items inside were soaked. It was his fault they'd been attacked. He couldn't set foot in town without attracting trouble and attention, whether he tried to avoid it or not. This was exactly why he shouldn't have come with her tonight, but he couldn't trust her to drive alone, not after his father had died trying to make the drive back to the Hall.

"Damn." She righted the suitcase and rolled it over to where he stood on the curb, watching her. He was closer to the lights from the pub than she was, and when she caught sight of him, she gasped and ran straight up to him.

"Oh my God! Are you okay?" She grasped his face, and he flinched as several sensitive places on his cheeks and jaw protested, despite the gentleness of her touch.

"I've been better. This is exactly why I insisted you stay at Stormclyffe." He pushed her hands away and touched the back of his head, wincing because it felt like glass shards were embedded in the back of his skull. There wasn't a wound, only a nasty bump. Jane's hands returned to his face. They were soft and soothing as she examined him. The unexpected touch pulled something deep inside him. He wanted her to keep touching him, but he couldn't let her. She was already too close to him, and his family's bad luck was starting to extend to her.

"You're a mess. Come on, we need to get you fixed up." She looped one arm through his and led him back to the car, dragging her suitcase behind her with her free hand. The growing pain of the new headache set in, and Bastian handed over the keys to the rental car without much of a fight. Driving the way he felt now wasn't safe or wise.

She drove them to a nearby pharmacy that was open late and ran in to buy supplies. While she was gone, Bastian pulled out his phone and dialed Randolph.

"Yes, my lord?" His butler answered on the first ring.

"We will be a little late. Please have the cook prepare some sandwiches and leave them in the kitchen."

"Of course, my lord. Do you require anything else?"

He smiled, even though it hurt to do so. Randolph was a good man. He was one of Bastian's father's servants who had remained loyal over the years and had known Bastian since he was a babe in his cradle. Too often of late, the butler had been carrying the burden of the renovations, and the man deserved a reprieve.

"No, nothing else. Thank you, Randolph. Get to bed and rest."

For a long moment, the older man didn't respond, but when he did speak, his tone was a little rough and full of appreciation. "Thank you, my lord. I shall see you in the morning."

"Good night." He ended the call and pocketed his phone just in time to catch Jane's quick-footed approach from the store, a plastic bag slung over one arm. His lips twitched. She was playful and casual, her American upbringing warring with her love for British culture. She was a conundrum that fascinated him. The way she moved, with a dancer's grace, every action natural and real, not like the women of his station who carried themselves with rigid poise or the women he dated who hung all over him, batting their lashes coquettishly. Jane simply existed as she was, and he liked that in a woman. He liked it too much.

I cannot get attached. The grim reminder didn't sit well with him. She needed to finish her research and get out. He hoped she wouldn't find much to write about. The last thing he wanted was a research paper pointing like a sign to his home so that all the tourists coming to the castle would end up being ghost hunters or simply curious gawkers.

She opened the door with one hand and tossed the bag into his lap. When she saw his face, she wrinkled her nose and squinted.

"Does it look that bad?" he asked.

She bit her lip then replied. "I should have grabbed a bag of frozen peas."

Peas? What on earth did the woman need peas for? When a man got into a fight and had bruising, he didn't put a bag of bloody peas on his face. A bag of ice would have been better.

"When you get out onto the country road, go slow, Jane." He wished he could drive. He didn't like the idea of her steering them to their doom.

"Okay. Why?" She wasn't questioning him or challenging him. He didn't hear that in her tone.

"The road is very narrow, and there are cliffs and plenty of ditches within easy distance of the road where you could roll the car. I was not joking when I said earlier you could easily harm yourself or worse." He braced one hand on the right armrest and the other against the closed window as the pain in his head doubled. The memories were always buried deep in his heart, but having to drive the road that had killed his father wasn't something he faced easily.

"Are you sure you're okay? You're really pale." Something in his chest gave a funny little flip at the look of concern she gave him. No one except for Randolph or his parents had ever worried about him the way she seemed to. His little bookworm cared.

"It feels like an ax is splitting my head in two." He rubbed his temples again.

"There's aspirin and a bottle of water in the sack." She pointed to the bag in his lap.

With a sigh, he dug through it until he found the bottle and the water, and he downed two pills. Hopefully the medicine would kick in soon and dull the awful throbbing between his eyes.

"Bastian…I'm so sorry about what happened."

He shrugged and set the water in the cup holder. "It wasn't your fault some drunken louts decided to have some fun."

The look she cast his way was doubtful. "Is this the sort of thing that happens when you come into Weymouth?"

He nodded. This had certainly been one of the more violent encounters but no less disturbing than the other incidents he'd had. The last time he had been in town, an old Russian woman outside a butcher shop had spat at his feet and made a strange sign with her hands, which he later learned was a sign to ward off the devil or evil spirits. Sometimes he wondered if he was a magnet for bad attention because of his family's reputation or the "curse" as the townspeople viewed it. Less reputable characters often flocked to him, ready to wreak havoc upon his life.

"These things happen. I took a chance going there."

"Why did you?" she asked.

Her eyes were on the road, but he knew her attention was fixated on him and what he might say. The truth couldn't hurt.

"I wanted to. It was that simple." If she'd gone alone, she might have been fine, but then again, he couldn't be sure, which is why he'd risked going with her. Only that had brought down the trouble all the more quickly upon them both.

She glanced at him. "I don't think there's anything simple about you."

Neither of them spoke after that. The car headlights pierced the gloom ahead of them, revealing the pale gray pavement of the road. Without the moon to light the hills, the terrain was pitch-black. Even the lights from the city behind them seemed to be cocooned in a bubble, unable to penetrate the darkness of the sloping hills that led to his family's home.

A flash of memory crossed his mind of the first night he'd come to the hall. It had been an endless night like this. A childlike fear of the dark and the things that stirred in it had risen up in him so quickly, he'd sucked in a harsh breath. In that instant, he'd longed for his father more than anything else. He envied the way his father had never seemed to fear anything. Driving to the Hall near midnight would have been the same to his father as driving there during daylight. It wasn't like that for Bastian. He was a sensible man, a rational one, but sometimes his body reacted, even when his head insisted there was nothing to fear from foolish stories and old wives' tales.

As he'd driven up to Stormclyffe Hall that first night before starting the renovations, the monolithic specter of the castle had burst out of the gloom, appearing before his headlights like a phantom itself. Not a single light had shone from the windows, nor had a breath of life stirred in the air around him as he got out of the car. He'd wondered then, would restorations and updated plumbing scrub the stones of the blood of his ancestors, purge the thought of curses and ghosts from the minds of nearly all of England—and one American PhD student? He hadn't been able to answer the question but only rely on the hope that all would be well if he could but restore the castle.

He was so lost in these dark thoughts, he failed to notice they had arrived at the Hall.

"Let's get inside and see to those injuries." Jane was already out of the car and fetching her suitcase. Bastian grabbed the pharmacy bag and joined her at the entrance. He unlocked the door, and once they were inside, took her suitcase and rolled it to the kitchens. The original kitchens of the hall had been a large stone-floored room. The remodeling had added advanced cooktops, several ovens, three fridges, and a dazzling array of lighting fixtures that made the new appliances gleam.

"I called Randolph while you were inside the shop. There should be sandwiches left out for us."

She nodded and started getting out the supplies. "Sit." She pointed at a bar stool that backed up to one of the side counters. He did as she commanded, curious to see what she would do next. With an air of an army general, she prepped a makeshift nurse's station. Dipping the edge of one cloth into hydrogen peroxide, she then dabbed at the cut on his face. He bit the inside of his cheek as the treatment burned. She handled several more small scrapes on his arm and hands before finally slapping a few Band-Aids on the deeper cuts. Her touch was gentle, her fingers soothing as they drifted over his skin.

"It's my turn to play doctor." He couldn't resist the chance to tease her, even though he knew he shouldn't. Teasing could lead to so much more. Things he couldn't do, not when he needed to stay the bloody hell away from her before some ridiculous coincidence "proved" the curse to yet another person—particularly one who might just get her assertions published. But damn if he couldn't resist.

The responding blush that flooded her cheeks was priceless. She started to pull her hands away, but he caught her wrists and held her. Her lips were ripe for kissing and oh so close.

Christ …he wanted her so bad it hurt and not in a way related to the injuries of his fight. The need to have her was as strong as the need to draw his next breath. It was nothing like before, when they first met. This time there was no wild, frightening fire driving him to act in a state of madness. Instead, there was a deep ache only curable by her touch, her body tucked in his arms. He wanted to explore her, learn what made her sigh and purr. The incident in the drawing room had been a flash fire of passion quick to burn out. Right now though, it was vastly different. His attraction to her wasn't a fleeting thing that would vanish when sanity returned.

Temporary lust was easily managed. True desire was an entirely different thing.

Still holding her hand, he noticed a few scrapes on her knuckles and some faint bruising marring her creamy skin.

"How many punches did you throw?" He meant to tease her, but his words come out rough. The idea of her fighting made his blood heat and yet made him anxious, too. She was under his protection, and she'd gotten hurt. Guilt rotted away inside him.

"I might have thrown a few." She faced him, her voice steady.

"Brave little bookworm," he mused.

Her eyes widened, and those luscious lips parted on a shocked gasp. "Bookworm?"

He swallowed, realizing he had let it slip. Time to distract her. He scooped up a clean cloth and dabbed at her knuckles.

"Ow!" she yelped. He could tell by the half-hidden smile on her lips that it hadn't really stung.

Bastian continued to clean the scrapes before fixing a few plasters around her fingers. The entire time she watched him, and he feared she could see right through him. No woman had ever looked upon him with such startling clarity. Her gaze unmade him and reformed him into something he'd longed to be for years: unguarded, open, and unafraid. She was the sort of woman that could tempt him to risk everything to be with her, if only he let himself. And that was exactly the problem. He couldn't let her get close, not when what was left of his family and their reputation might get hurt.

When he was finished tending to her, he gestured to one of the fridges.

"You get the food. I'll fetch something from the wine cellar."

"Sure." She tugged her hands from his and stepped back.

The loss of her closeness unsettled him, but he had no valid reason to drag her into his arms. He almost wished he'd lose himself like he had in the drawing room. Distance, even temporary, would be good. He didn't look back as he left the kitchen. The castle halls were dark. Half of the lighting still hadn't been installed yet. Luckily, the route to the wine cellar wasn't that complicated. A left turn past the painting of two knights jousting, then a right at the hall where Richard's collection of marble statues stood on pedestals on either side of the long room. It was one of the more intriguing parts of the house. He made mental note to keep her away from the private archives where the journals containing sordid details of the Weymouth tragedies lay.

The old oak door leading to wine cellar groaned as he pulled on the circular iron handle. The hinges needed oiling or perhaps replacing. One more thing to add to the damned list of things to fix. An electric lamp at the top of the stairs was within each reach, and he flicked it on. Yellow light bathed the steps but didn't penetrate the pool of blackness below. When Bastian took the first step down, a cool breeze tickled his face, stirring the fine hairs on the back of his neck. He didn't move as the sound of soft exhalation brushed his ears, like a woman's heavy sigh. He could almost hear Jane's voice in his head.

Ghosts, they haunt these walls. She had never uttered the words aloud, but he had seen that thought flash across her face.

When his feet hit the stone floor at the bottom of the stairs, he paused again. The curious sensation of focus on the back of his head made him uneasy. It had to be nerves. Jane and her foolish obsession were rubbing off on him, that was all. However…he didn't linger in the cellar. He snatched up the nearest bottle of red wine from the rack to his right and vaulted back up the stairs, firmly slamming the cellar door behind him with a satisfying bang. Whatever was down there, if there was anything, would stay down there. As he headed back for the kitchen, he strained to focus on a faint sound…the echoing laugh of a woman.